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Group Booking opens for Autumn Season 2014/15 on Tuesday 1 July
Artists of the Royal Ballet in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Royal Ballet © ROH / Johan Persson 2013 Group Booking for the Autumn Season 2014/15 opens on Tuesday 1 July, two weeks ahead of...
View ArticleWatch: Joyce DiDonato on performing Il barbiere di Siviglia with a broken leg
It's a performance that has passed into Covent Garden legend: In July 2009, American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato slipped during the opening night performance of The Royal Opera's Il barbiere di...
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Opera Essentials: Il barbiere di Siviglia
Il barbiere di Siviglia, The Royal Opera © ROH / Mike Hoban 2011 The Story Begins… Count Almaviva has arrived in Seville to woo a beautiful woman he glimpsed in Madrid. But, unbeknownst to the Count,...
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Rossini vs the music industry: How the composer quietly subverted the 1800s...
Il barbiere di Siviglia, The Royal Opera © ROH / Bill Cooper 2011 No critic in Rossini’s lifetime espoused a neutral view of the composer, especially in Paris where ‘Rossinistes’ and ‘Anti-Rossinistes’...
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Laughing out loud: Some of our favourite comedy moments in opera
Susana Gaspar as Papagena and Christopher Maltman as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte © ROH / Mike Hoban 2013 ‘Das klinget so herrlich’ ('That sounds so splendid') from Act I of Die Zauberflöte by Wolfgang...
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Il barbiere di Siviglia Musical highlight: The Act I finale
Il barbiere di Siviglia, The Royal Opera © ROH / Mike Hoban 2011 Rossini was a genius at usurping the conventions of his day for his own dramatic ends. He managed this with such aplomb that his operas...
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Your Reaction: Il barbiere di Siviglia
Lucas Meachem as Figaro and Alessandro Corbelli as Doctor Bartolo in Il barbiere di Siviglia © ROH. Photo by Tristram Kenton Small boy of no more than five sitting next to me at #ROHbarbiere: Mamma, I...
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Stormy weather: How opera composers use musical maelstroms
Ships on a Stormy Sea by Willem van de Velde the Younger (c. 1672) Despite that fact that you can wear what you want to the opera, few people sit in their seats with raincoats and umbrellas. From what...
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How to Stage an Opera: Escape from Il barbiere di Siviglia
Il barbiere di Siviglia, The Royal Opera © ROH / Bill Cooper 2011 Our 'How to Stage an Opera' series offers different perspectives on the practicalities of staging an opera, from the initial research...
View ArticleWatch: How to sing Rossini with Mark Elder
‘Rossini was very strict about his music and this is one of the problems we have nowadays because it’s so difficult to perform,’ says conductor Mark Elder. ‘In Rossini’s music there is no fat, there’s...
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What are your first memories of opera?
Anna Caterina Antonacci and Jonas Kaufmann in Carmen, The Royal Opera, 2006 © Catherine Ashmore Shocked by a ludicrous death? Amazed by an unexpected performance? Caught off-guard by a live broadcast...
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The opera Olympics: Why classical singers are like elite athletes
The Hurdler, Opera Olympics, Royal Opera House © 2016 ROH. Image by William Goldsmith It’s 7:30 pm. The bell has rung. The spectators are in their seats. The tension mounts. The spotlight hits. A lone...
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Amazing ballet and opera settings that will make you want to travel
View over Paris, at dusk, from the Maine-Montparnasse tower ‘For I assure you, without travel, at least for people from the arts and sciences, one is a miserable creature!’ stated Wolfgang Amadeus...
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Royal Opera broadcasts for autumn and winter 2016/17 announced
The view from the main stage Orchestra Pit at the Royal Opera House © ROH/Sim Canetty-Clarke, 2014 Eight Royal Opera productions will be broadcast over the coming months on BBC Radio 3. Each broadcast...
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Box clever: How Il barbiere di Siviglia's wacky toy box staging adds to the...
Il barbiere di Siviglia, The Royal Opera © ROH / Bill Cooper 2011 Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) is perhaps the most famous opera buffa – a style of Italian comic opera that...
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Your Reaction: What did you think of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville?
Ferruccio Furlanetto, José Fardilha, Vito Priante, Javier Camarena, Madeleine Pierard and Daniela Mack in Il barbiere di Siviglia, The Royal Opera © 2016 ROH. Photo by Mark Douet Vito Priante is the...
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Who was the Barber of Seville?
José Fardilha as Don Bartolo and Vito Priante as Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, The Royal Opera © 2016 ROH. Photograph by Mark Douet Meet Figaro, the barber of Seville and the eponymous hero of not...
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Why opera isn't all tragedies and trauma
Alessandro Corbelli as Sulpice in La fille du régiment © ROH/Bill Cooper Italian opera is all doom and gloom, ill-starred lovers and gruesome deaths: La traviata, La bohème, Tosca… Or is it? From...
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